Chapter 13 - CELESTE ASKED TO SEE HER
Celeste requested a meeting.
Maren refused twice.
On the third request, she accepted.
Attorney present.
Secure interview room.
No physical contact.
Celeste looked terrible.
Good.
Maren hated herself for thinking it.
Then decided not to.
Celeste sat across from her.
“I’m sorry.”
Maren said nothing.
“I know that means nothing.”
“Correct.”
Celeste swallowed.
“Reed told me he loved me.”
Maren almost laughed.
“That is your defense?”
“No.”
“It’s part of why I became stupid.”
“You were sleeping with my husband.”
“Yes.”
“You helped remove medication that kept me alive.”
Celeste started crying.
“Yes.”
“You waited while my airway closed.”
“Yes.”
“Stop crying like those answers are happening to you.”
Celeste wiped her face.
Maren continued.
“You were my sister before Reed was my husband.”
“I know.”
“No.”
“You know the words.”
“If you knew what they meant, we would not be here.”
Celeste stared at the table.
Then whispered.
“There is something you don’t know.”
Maren waited.
“Reed planned to leave me too.”
“That is not surprising.”
“No.”
“After your death.”
“He had documents.”
“Where?”
“Safe-deposit box.”
“Which bank?”
Celeste gave the location.
Inside, investigators found a draft marriage agreement.
Not between Reed and Celeste.
Between Reed and another woman.
Graham Voss’s daughter.
Natalie.
The document was dated four months earlier.
Celeste had never been the replacement wife.
She was another tool.
That realization broke something in her.
Maren felt no joy.
Only a strange symmetry.
Reed had used Celeste’s resentment the way Graham used Reed’s ambition.
May you like
Everyone believed they were moving upward.
Someone above them was always holding the ladder.
